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Managers · code 1412

Restaurant managers

Software can do the stock and the books. Keeping a busy restaurant happy on a Saturday night is still you.

Stock and financial records are the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Buying and pricing are mostly out of its reach, and keeping the kitchen up to health standards it barely touches.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Restaurant managers plan, organize and direct the operations of cafés, restaurants and related establishments to provide dining and catering services. Tasks include - (a) planning menus in consultation with chefs and cooks; (b) planning and organizing special functions; (c) arranging the purchasing and pricing of goods according to budget; (d) maintaining records of stock levels and financial transactions; (e) ensuring that dining, kitchen and food storage facilities comply with health regulations and are clean, functional and of suitable appearance; (f) conferring with customers to assess their satisfaction with meals and service; (g) selecting staff, setting staff work schedules, and training and supervising waiting and kitchen staff; (h) taking reservations, greeting guests and assisting in taking orders; (i) negotiating arrangements with clients and suppliers; (j) ensuring compliance with occupational health and safety regulations. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Café manager - Catering manager - Restaurant manager Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Chef - 3434 Note Operators of small cafés, restaurants and bars for whom the management and supervision of staff is not a significant component of the work are classified in Unit Groups 5120: Cooks, 5131: Waiters or 5132: Bartenders, depending on the main tasks performed.

  • restaurant manager

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

64 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure

287 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 10 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 36.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 36.3 = 63.7.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.

This job rates 52.3 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, and for work like this robots are the bigger question.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Restaurant managers 64

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Stock and financial records.
  • Reservations and ordering systems.
  • Purchasing and pricing.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Looking after guests.
  • Managing staff through busy services.
  • Keeping standards and hygiene high.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Online reviews and reputation management.
  • Delivery and dark kitchens.
  • Rising costs and tighter margins.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Medium

43 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 69 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

52 how hands-on

A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 37 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

52 How
hands-on
37 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, matched to one US job .

finger skill 41.1 · hand skill 42.9 · cramped spaces 26 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 60, against an average of 36. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 60

    Maintaining records of stock levels and financial transactions

    Medium
  2. 49

    Arranging the purchasing and pricing of goods according to budget

    Low
  3. 44

    Planning menus in consultation with chefs and cooks

    Low
  4. 38

    Taking reservations, greeting guests and assisting in taking orders

    Low
  5. 35

    Planning and organizing special functions

    Low
  6. 35

    Conferring with customers to assess their satisfaction with meals and service

    Low
  7. 28

    Selecting, set staff work schedules, training and supervising waiting and kitchen staff

    Low
  8. 27

    Ensuring compliance with occupational health and safety regulations.

    Low
  9. 26

    Negotiating arrangements with clients and suppliers

    Low
  10. 23

    Ensuring dining, kitchen and food storage facilities comply with health regulations and are clean, functional and of suitable appearance

    Very Low

10 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
69
AI does it for you
43

Sidekick wins, by 26 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 1411

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Out of every 100 conversations

48
52

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job. This job makes up 0.13% of the conversations.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should restaurant managers be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

The admin is moving. Stock and financial records are rated Medium; purchasing, menus, reservations, events, customer feedback, staffing, safety and negotiation are Low; hygiene compliance rates Very Low. Booking and stock systems take on the paperwork; hospitality stays human.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 30 jobs in the “Managers” family, averaging 64. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →